September 16, 2010

FOOD is the topic of an upcoming walking tour at Forest Hills Cemetery led by Anthony M. Sammarco on Sunday, October 17th at 2:00 PM. Watch the calendar of events for more information, or check this Blog for more details.

Don't miss this fun tour!

Among those who will be included on this tasteful walking tour are S.S. Pierce, Maria Parloa, Thaddeus Clapp, Samuel Downer, Henry Pfaff and Ruby Foo. This will be a special walk, discussing the many aspects of food with samples along the way. Samuel Stillman Pierce (1807-1880) (known as S.S. Pierce, pronounced Purse) was known as the purveyor of fancy goods and libations to Victorian Bostonians. Opening his store at the corner of Tremont and Court Streets in the old West End of Boston in 1831, he catered to the carriage trade and created a company that involved four generations of the Pierce Family in its successful operations. As a businessman, Pierce was said to be “a man of unflinching honesty and sterling integrity of character."

Maria Parloa (1843-1909) was an astute cooking instructor whose teaching methods were well received, and she opened Miss Parloa’s Cooking School on Tremont Street in Boston. This led to her teaching at the Boston Cooking School, which she is also credited with cofounding. Her partial ownership of the Ladies Home Journal magazine allowed her articles on food and its preparation to be read by women far and wide, and her cookbooks, beginning in 1878 with Camp Cookery, eventually numbered eleven, including Miss Parloa’s New Cook Book: A Guide toMarketing and Cooking and Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes by Miss Parloa for the Walter Baker & Company.

Thaddeus Clapp (1811-1861) was the hybridizer of the Clapp Favorite pear, a cross between the Flemish Beauty and the Bartlett pears but an early ripening pear that was awarded a medal by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. Clapp's white marble monument has a bas-relief of the pear carved upon it.

Samuel Downer was a noted hybridizer who achieved fame for the Downers Late cherry. He was proprietor of Downer's Landing in Hingham, an alcohol free family amusement park in the late nineteenth century, that had a boat leavin Boston for the landing throughout the summer.

Henry Pfaff (1826-1893) was a well-known lager beer brewer whose brewery was active from 1857 to 1918, and was located at 1276 Columbus Avenue, the present site of Roxbury Community College. The abundant and crystal clear water from Stony Brook, along with artesian wells bubbling to the surface around Mission Hill, in addition to the affordable land after the City of Roxbury merged with Boston in 1868 made Pfaff’s one of the major brewers. With his brother, Pfaff established the H&J Pfaff Brewery that imparted a little bit of old Germany that created the demand for the new German type Lager beers.

Ruby Foo (1904-1950) was proprietor of Ruby Foo's Den, a popular Hudson Street restaurant in Boston's Chinatown that was among the first to offer Chinese cuisine to Bostonians.

Jacob Wirth (1840-1892) was an immigrant from Kreuznach, Prussia who six years after he immigrated to America opened in 1868 his namesake Germanic beer-hall style restaurant on Stuart Street in Boston. Above the long mahogany bar has been the Latin motto “Suum Cuiqce” which literally translates “to each his own” and which aptly fits the character of this legendary restaurant. Jake Worth’s has long been known for its Sauerbraten and Weiner Schnitzel, and other German style foods, as well as a wide selection of beers for every taste.

September 13, 2010

The Massachusetts Cremation Society opened a crematorium on Walk Hill Street in 1893, and was financed by local cremation societies. The building was designed by local architect Ludvig Sandoe Ipsen (1840-1920) and built of Roxbury felsite in the classical style; an addition, designed by Thomas Fox and Edward Gale, was built in 1905 with a basement columbaria. The first cremation in New England took place here in 1893, and was that of Dorchester resident and women's rights advocate Lucy Stone.

In 1925, Forest Hills Cemetery acquired the crematory, and since that time has almost tripled its size.

The Lucy Stone Chapel, seen here, is the largest of the two chapels at the Forest Hills Cemetery Crematorium and was named in memory of Lucy Sone, wife of Henry Browne Blackell. Lucy Stone (1818-1893) was a leader of the national women's rights movement and referred to as "the morning star of the woman's rights movement." She was an organizer of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, the first Massachusetts woman to receive a college degree (Oberlin College in 1838,) the first married woman to keep her own name, and the founder and editor of the Women's Journal. However, she was the first person to be cremated in New England, which was at the Massachusetts Cremation Society, now the Forest Hills Crematorium, where her ashes are deposited in a large urn later co-mingled with those of her husband and daughter.

September 7, 2010

Amelia Peabody (1890–1984) was a noted sculptor, having studied with Bela Pratt and Edmund Tarbell. She was the daughter of Frank Everett Peabody, who was a partner of Kidder Peabody and Company, and she “created a life-long reputation in her own right, not only for her artistry, but also for her philanthropy, patronage of the arts, civic leadership, love of animals, and equestrian pursuits.”

Amelia Peabody owned Mill Farm on Dedham Street and Powisset Farm on Powisset Street with vast acreage of woodlands and fields between them. On her death she bequeathed Powisset Farm and most of the open land to the Trustees of Reservations, now Noanet Woodlands. An avid horsewoman in her younger days, she was also an accomplished sculptor. Her studio was at Mill Farm.

The Peabody lot at Forest Hills Cemetery is set in a dense grove of trees, and is marked by a huge Roxbury puddingstone boulder.

Historic Forest Hills Cemetery

Visit our website for more information, a calendar of events, and directions

Forest Hills is a historic cemetery located in Boston, Massachusetts. Designed in 1848 as a 250-acre park and arboretum as well as a burial ground, it helped inspire Frederick Law Olmsted's Emerald Necklace a generation later. Visitors discover a grand Victorian landscape filled with treasures of 19th century art and architecture, a green oasis shaded by magnificent canopy trees, and a sanctuary for birds and urban wildlife.